I run Linux Mint 17, with HPLIP 3.14. I have an old HP Laserjet 1018. It's buggy under Linux but I can usually get it to print.

My partner bought an HP Laserjet Pro MFP M130fw. She wants to use it as a photocopier and I want to use it to scan onto a flash drive. Neither of these uses requires a computer. The Read-Me-First instructions with the M130 were confusing, but I think I have to connect it to a computer for some sort of initialization before it will do copying and scanning.

So, fine, I looked it up on the HP site and it is a supported printer for Linux, but only with HPLIP 3.17. It turns out that there is no easy way to update HPLIP, or at least, I could not find one. So, I downloaded a file (hplip-3.17.10.run) from sourceforge to my desktop. I'm a GUI girl, not Terminal, but I managed to run this:cd ~/Desktopsh hplip-3.17.10.run

This produced hundreds of lines of gibberish, culminating in a bunch of red Failure notices about "firmware", whatever that is.

This is my current situation:There is a folder on my Desktop called hplip-3.17.10, with lots of stuff in it. If I go to the Start menu and look for a program called HPLIP, it is not found. There is an HP icon in my System tray, but if I click on it, nothing happens. If I right-click and choose Settings, a window briefly flickers into existence, and then it and the icon both vanish. My older printer, the 1018, is completely unresponsive.

I have 2 questions:

1) Why is this so hard? If I want to update, say, Gimp, I go to Update Manager, click on an Update button, go read a novel for 20 minutes, and presto, it works. Why isn't there some comparably easy way to update HPLIP?

2) How can I get HPLIP 3.17 to work? I assume that that is the first step to recovering my 1018 functionality, and then getting the M130 up and happy.

1) HPLIP is written by HP: so it is not in the linux repositories; ...... so it is not updated; in the way GiMP might be .......

2) How can I get HPLIP 3.17 to work? ......... good question; you seemed to have done all that HP suggest; so it should be good; I wonder if you have seen this page from HP: https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imag ... tall/index ..... they way they say it, the automatic installer should identify what is missing; and install it;

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if you open a terminal; and paste this command in (PASTE by right-clicking at the flashing text prompt; and look for PASTE in the menu that appears .....)

I discovered that if I double-click on the System tray icon, it will open up an HP Device Manager window, which is apparently what HPLIP calls itself. Also, if I search the Start menu, not for hplip, but just for hp, then it brings up the HP Device Manager. However, sometimes it does not respond at all.

Then the menu > Configure > Preferences leads to a Settings window, which is nice, but the right-click on the system tray leading to a vanishing window problem still exists.

The manager identifies itself as version 3.17.10, but when I followed your suggestion and ran "-l hplip" in the Terminal, it identified itself as version 3.14.

So there seem to be some problems in the installation. I could just start over: download another hplip from sourceforge, and run it. It claims to uninstall previous versions. Does this make sense, or is it just inviting trouble?

I did not run the other diagnostics you suggested (or not yet) but I did run the hplip software internal diagnostic from the Device Manager ( with the printer plugged in and turned on). It produced this amazing pile of stuff below, which might make sense to you, but not to me, alas:

Copyright (c) 2001-15 HP Development Company, LPThis software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute itunder certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

Copyright (c) 2001-15 HP Development Company, LPThis software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute itunder certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

Copyright (c) 2001-15 HP Development Company, LPThis software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute itunder certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

Current contents of '/etc/hp/hplip.conf' file:# hplip.conf. Generated from hplip.conf.in by configure.

[hplip]version=3.17.10

[dirs]home=/usr/share/hpliprun=/var/runppd=/usr/share/ppd/HPppdbase=/usr/share/ppddoc=/usr/share/doc/hplip-3.17.10html=/usr/share/doc/hplip-3.17.10icon=/usr/share/applicationscupsbackend=/usr/lib/cups/backendcupsfilter=/usr/lib/cups/filterdrv=/usr/share/cups/drv/hpbin=/usr/binapparmor=/etc/apparmor.d# Following values are determined at configure time and cannot be changed.[configure]network-build=yeslibusb01-build=nopp-build=nogui-build=yesscanner-build=yesfax-build=yesdbus-build=yescups11-build=nodoc-build=yesshadow-build=nohpijs-install=nofoomatic-drv-install=nofoomatic-ppd-install=nofoomatic-rip-hplip-install=nohpcups-install=yescups-drv-install=yescups-ppd-install=nointernal-tag=3.17.10restricted-build=noui-toolkit=qt4qt3=noqt4=yesqt5=nopolicy-kit=nolite-build=noudev_sysfs_rules=nohpcups-only-build=nohpijs-only-build=noapparmor_build=yes

Copyright (c) 2001-15 HP Development Company, LPThis software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute itunder certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

(Note: Defaults for each question are maked with a '*'. Press <enter> to accept the default.)

...........if you open the PRINTERS folder; (it is in the ADMINISTRATION folder ..) and do you have only one icon for the HP? If so, if you right-click on it; and look in MAKE & MODEL ............ can you copy what it says there and paste it back here please?

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and then it told you this

Checking for Printer Status....error: 'HP-LaserJet-1018' Printer is either Powered-OFF or Failed to communicate.Turn On Printer and re-run hp-doctor

.............. so you can always run the command

hp-doctor

______with the HP turned on and connected; by usb; .......... does it appear when you type the command

I ran hp-setup, as you suggested. It asked (via a small GUI) how I wanted to connect, so I chose USB (the default) and plugged in my printer and turned it on. It then searched and found nothing. I did double-check that the cable was properly plugged in. Here is the output:

Copyright (c) 2001-15 HP Development Company, LPThis software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute itunder certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

The Samsung thing is confusing. When I print, it gives me the choice of HP and Samsung, and has done so for as long as I can remember. But I don't remember ever having a Samsung. If I did, it was a long time ago.

I used the file manager to search for an "administration" folder on my filesystem, but nothing was located. Sorry.

Copyright (c) 2001-15 HP Development Company, LPThis software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute itunder certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

Copyright (c) 2001-15 HP Development Company, LPThis software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute itunder certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

Copyright (c) 2001-15 HP Development Company, LPThis software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute itunder certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

Current contents of '/etc/hp/hplip.conf' file:# hplip.conf. Generated from hplip.conf.in by configure.

[hplip]version=3.17.10

[dirs]home=/usr/share/hpliprun=/var/runppd=/usr/share/ppd/HPppdbase=/usr/share/ppddoc=/usr/share/doc/hplip-3.17.10html=/usr/share/doc/hplip-3.17.10icon=/usr/share/applicationscupsbackend=/usr/lib/cups/backendcupsfilter=/usr/lib/cups/filterdrv=/usr/share/cups/drv/hpbin=/usr/binapparmor=/etc/apparmor.d# Following values are determined at configure time and cannot be changed.[configure]network-build=yeslibusb01-build=nopp-build=nogui-build=yesscanner-build=yesfax-build=yesdbus-build=yescups11-build=nodoc-build=yesshadow-build=nohpijs-install=nofoomatic-drv-install=nofoomatic-ppd-install=nofoomatic-rip-hplip-install=nohpcups-install=yescups-drv-install=yescups-ppd-install=nointernal-tag=3.17.10restricted-build=noui-toolkit=qt4qt3=noqt4=yesqt5=nopolicy-kit=nolite-build=noudev_sysfs_rules=nohpcups-only-build=nohpijs-only-build=noapparmor_build=yes

More information on Troubleshooting,How-To's and Support is available on http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/index.htmldogstar@dogstar-desktop ~ $

It also gave me a little pop-up like so:"hp-systrayHPLIP cannot detect devices in your network. This may be due to existing firewall settings blocking the required ports like (5353/udp). When you are in a trusted network environment, you may open the ports for network services like mdns and slp in the firewall. For detailed steps follow the link.http://hplipopensource.com/node/375"I did not look at node 375. There is zero likelihood that I could follow geeky stuff like that.

I ran lsusb, as you suggested. It does show the HP 1018, which is bizarre. Now I really don't understand why hplip can't see it. ?! Here is the output:

Check the box to accept with the "Driver Plug-In License Agreement" and click "Next".

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however this all started with the HP Laserjet Pro MFP M130fw arriving ....... if I understand you correctly, the older 1018 stopped working then;

1) does the HP Laserjet Pro MFP M130fw print ........ do you use it? Is it a wireless connect?

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hplip have released a newer version which is 3.17.11 and it might be worth installing that; as they seem to be releasing them more frequently; and maybe problems are creeping in; as they try to fix other problems ............